Which source should be used if the original source no longer exists?

In the past, I've uploaded images to various sites (Gelbooru, etc.) and included the original source. However, some of the artists' accounts no longer exist, rendering the original links invalid.

How should I upload these images here to Danbooru? Including the original source could definitely cause confusion.

You can include the original source and tag it bad_id, which indicates that the source link is inactive.

I was told you tag the source you got it from, not the source you wish you did.

It's valid to use Gel, Zerochan, or Pinterest as a source if that is where you originally found it and the original no longer exists.

Ideally, I would cite both sources, but that's not technically possible. Should I therefore put the current source in the "original description" field?

So far, the answers are unfortunately contradictory. ;-)

I guess you can put the image's original dead source in the comments and use the gelbooru/whatever source as the source on the post.

The one I was specifically consulted on is post #7309700 which I just used the "current" source and left with a third-party source tag. I didn't feel the need to specify and neither do people in source:*pinterest* third-party_source or source:*zerochan* third-party_source. However, if I'm thinking about it deeper, I think if you have the original link I'd leave it as a comment on the post not in the commentary source field.

zetsubousensei said:

I think if you have the original link I'd leave it as a comment on the post not in the commentary source field.

+1 on this.

Commentary field should only be used for any information/description provided by the artist themselves.
If it's not from the artist directly, it should go into the comments.

GabrielWB said:

+1 on this.

Commentary field should only be used for any information/description provided by the artist themselves.
If it's not from the artist directly, it should go into the comments.

Question for future reference, I posted a picture with a link to a song that was dead in the commentary so I found a re-upload of the song, is this good?

Oops, i guess i messed up the first attempt. I swapped the URLs and added it as artist commentary (which i can not edit?).

post #10423741

Artist commentary can be changed by clicking the "add commentary" link in the left sidebar

shemingwan_wen said:

Artist commentary can be changed by clicking the "add commentary" link in the left sidebar

Thank you. Didn't expect to find it under "add". ;-)

If you can prove that the file of the post is exactly the one that would've been at the original link, then it is valid to use the original link + bad id as the source, even if you got it from somewhere else. Matching MD5s are the only case where it's valid to outright switch the link. In any other case, leave it as specifically where you uploaded it from.

WRS said:

If you can prove that the file of the post is exactly the one that would've been at the original link, then it is valid to use the original link + bad id as the source, even if you got it from somewhere else. Matching MD5s are the only case where it's valid to outright switch the link. In any other case, leave it as specifically where you uploaded it from.

This is also why posts with archived sources for sources should be changed to the dead source they represent (and then untagged), because the archive should be as close of a copy as possible, at worst potentially just giving you an image sample that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten had the source been still active.